Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a method of controlling the same, and a non-transitory computer-readable medium.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there are print order services for so-called photobooks or the like by which a user creates a book composed of multiple pages by freely arranging image data with respect to a predetermined layout, and orders it via a network. When the user places an order, order information and laid-out content data are transmitted to a production base, and the product is made according to the order.
The production step needed at the production base is constituted by a plurality of work steps. Also, the combination of the work steps and the processing content of the steps differ depending on the type of the book. Also, one book is constituted by a combination of multiple parts such as a cover, a main body (body), and the like.
With this kind of service, there are many cases of different users each placing small orders of different types of books instead of basically a specific user ordering a large amount of books with the same content, or in other words, small-lot high-mix production is used. From the point of view of the manufacturing base, orders from users are for random product types, and therefore if they are brought to the production step in the order they were ordered, the production sequence of the parts constituting the products will be random as well, and there will be a problem in that the production efficiency of the entire production base will deteriorate significantly.
With a production base for a product at which it is presumed that multiple types of products will be produced, in the interest of the human resource cost relative to the product price as well as setting the delivery date to the user, what is important is how much the productivity can be improved based on the entire configuration rather than the productivity of each product or constituent part.
In order to resolve these problems, a production step design is desirable which takes into consideration making products of the same type consecutive in each work step at the time of starting production. Conventionally, after the user inputs an order, the operation side responds with an operator manually performing grouping by the same product type before starting production, and thereafter repeating the manufacturing for the same product type at a fixed time. Also, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2011-244158, an execution sequence is controlled based on the attributes of the sheet designated for the job such that print jobs that use sheets supplied from the same paper feeding tray are executed consecutively.
Since Japanese Patent Laid-Open Mo. 2011-244158 only takes into consideration the optimization of press processing, it does not take into consideration the overall workflow of the production base, including various types of steps other than the press step. Also, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2011-244158 does not take into consideration the actual sequence control between parts.